


Paved with good intentions

by arthur_177



Category: Marvel Avengers Movies Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Angst, Backstory, Coercion, Dubious Consent, Established Relationship, Fix-It, Get Together, M/M, Non-Graphic Violence, PTSD, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-05
Updated: 2012-10-05
Packaged: 2017-11-15 17:00:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/529523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arthur_177/pseuds/arthur_177
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Phil Coulson is re-introduced to the world, he does three things. </p>
<p>First, he goes to find Clint Barton, for reasons that should be obvious to everyone but, as he learns, apparently were not. Then, he gets Barton to get him coffee first and then give him a recap of what he has missed, mission-and otherwise. After that, he goes to psych, finds the psychologist who compiled Clint's file, and punches him in the face. </p>
<p>Clint gives him shit for potentially pulling his stitches, but mostly, he smiles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Paved with good intentions

**Author's Note:**

> Written for an Avengers Kinkmeme prompt http://avengerkink.livejournal.com/11065.html?thread=23542329#t23542329 which could be summarized as 'Coulson helped Clint cope with his issues with being an assassin, SHIELD psych now thinks Clint needs to get laid to deal with trauma, and Tony is encouraged to try to take over from Coulson to fix Clint', but that doesn't do it justice, really. It's a story about good intentions gone terribly wrong, and about nightmares and SHIELD being somewhat evil and its psychologists being worst of all, so please heed all the warnings. It may not exactly count as dub-con as Clint does give full consent, but there is a strong element of coercion as he only does it to be left in peace. As always, caveat lector. 
> 
> This also turned a lot longer than expected, so there is a lot of backstory. On the bright side, it has a sort of happy ending, and Coulson turns out not to be dead, so it's not all angsty and awful. Just mostly.

\- Past - 

A man in a nice suit sits down in front of him and explains his options to him. Clint didn't plan to get arrested for something he didn't do, and he didn't plan to be one of the bad guys simply because stuff went wrong in his life over and over again. The man smiles blandly, indulgently when Clint says he just wanted to be a hero like Iron Man (Ten years later, he will overhear a conversation where the same man tells one of his junior agents, 'The worst ones all have a cover story, something they believe in that makes it work for them somehow. When you're to bring in someone SHIELD needs because they are a good assassin and they tell you all they wanted to do is be a good guy, be like Iron Man, just smile and nod. Just never make the mistake of believing them.').

The man asks him to join SHIELD, and Clint says yes. 

He meant the part about wanting to be one of the good guys. He thought they meant the part where they said they'd help him with that. 

 

“I'm Agent Coulson”, another man in a nice suit says to him. This one brings coffee and donuts. Clint appreciates that – it makes this strange supersecret organisation appear a lot more human, and the powdered sugar on the desk is something that Clint recognises (they explain guns and rifles and more guns to him. He's a quick study, and he learns to use them well enough, but he never quite figures out why they give him this look between confusion and disappointment when he doesn't smile as they hand him more and more deadly weapons. This isn't something he is familiar with, this way of life that disregards life this much. He wonders if he's being naive, or old-fashioned. He supposes he must be one or the other, and asks for his bow back). Agent Coulson looks harmless and smiles pleasantly, so Clint knows he's anything but harmless, and probably anything but pleasant as well. He'll have to watch out for that one. “I'm Agent Barton”, he says, tries the title on with the name, but it doesn't sound right. Yet. They tell him it's only a matter of time before the guns and the kevlar become second nature. He's not sure how he feels about that. 

“I know”, Agent Coulson says, and “I've been assigned as your handler.” Clint nods and takes the coffee, folds his hands around the paper cup. He knows what his last handler did when you didn't smile at the new weapons and stopped to sleep. He wonders if there are forms for that sort of thing, and how many of those have been filed. He wonders if it's just him, or if SHIELD has a way with people, making sure that at the end of the day everyone smiles.

He wonders if saying yes was a mistake. 

 

For the first week, Coulson just brings coffee, points out mistakes in his reports, asks him to clarify specifics or voice requests for uniform and weapon modifications. There is no shouting and no being dragged to psych to be 'fixed, because I can't have someone like you on the next mission, Agent'. There are new arrows, and new bows, and traces of powdered sugar on Coulson's left sleeve which he dabs at with an annoyed expression. That is something Clint smiles at. 

At the end of the week, Clint says, 'My last handler dumped me because he said I was bound to become a liability sooner or later and he didn't want it to happen on his watch, and psych thinks I can't be fixed but need to talk to them about it anyway and continue to do things that give me more nightmares. So what have you done to deserve being assigned to me, Agent Coulson?'

Coulson looks at him for a long time. Then he says 'I made Level Six, which means I get to pick my own assets from the best SHIELD has to offer.'

 

The next mission is a complete success, and Clint gets a commendation. His last handler congratulates him and apologizes for what he said, since 'Apparently Coulson managed to make an assassin out of you after all'. Clint makes it through debrief and gets the next day off, as a reward. 

He's through the fourth cycle of nightmares and the second glass of whisky when Coulson overrides the security protocols for his door six hours later. Coulson is the second last person he wants to see (the last being the guy he shot on this mission, and the Hydra scientist he shot on the last one, and everyone before that whose face he can remember, all conflated into one person for the convenience of his nightmares), so he is a bit ruder than he has clearance for when he tells his handler to fuck off. 

Coulson doesn't call him out on it (even though he could, because he's already talked himself into two disciplinary actions within ten minutes), but he also doesn't leave. Eventually, Clint folds, pours Coulson a glass, and lets him sit next to him as he continues to stare at the wall. 

 

It becomes a routine, after good missions, after bad missions, on regular Tuesday nights, on most weekends. Eventually, Clint starts to talk. Eventually, Coulson starts to sit a little closer to him, and there may be a hand on his shoulder, around his shoulder. 

There is a night where it's so bad that Clint calls Coulson and tells him he's quitting, SHIELD, everything, and Coulson comes for him at four in the morning and holds him while he cries and says far more things than he wanted Coulson to know. He falls asleep with Coulson still holding him and wakes up eight hours later, feeling more relaxed and calm than he has in week. 

There is coffee and a box of donuts on the table, and a note from Coulson that he'll be back once he's finished his meeting with the Director.

There are no more psych evals after that, and somehow Coulson all but moves in with him. They aren't in a relationship, Clint isn't even sure if they are really friends, but it happens. Coulson sleeps on the other side of the bed, and somehow that makes it work. 

Missions get easier after that, and so does sleeping, but there are still bad nights. Clint reckons that maybe he can't be fixed, but he can be mended enough to function and get a good day out of it as well. 

There is a night where Coulson bleeds out in his arms, an arrow piercing his heart, and when he starts awake and Coulson is there to tell him it's ok, Agent Barton, it was a dream, all Clint can think of doing to make sure that it wasn't real and that Coulson is really alive is to kiss Coulson.

Coulson kisses back. They don't stop at kissing either. 

After that, Coulson officially moves in with him, and they mutually agree that they've now formalized the relationship they'd been having for years by adding sex to cohabitation, sincere care and looking out for each other. 

There is a night where it takes Clint longer than usual to snap out of it again, and Coulson, revealing remarkably little of the worry he feels in his voice, slaps him and orders him to focus. Clint blinks and licks his lips. Coulson looks at him, at the way his eyes are glazed over with something other than a nightmare, at the way he went from disoriented to aroused within moments, and softly says 'Oh.' 

Clint didn't know he was that kinky, and he certainly didn't expect Coulson to be, but they invest in blindfolds, cuffs, a paddle, and if the proximity and the sex already did wonders, this is a full-out miracle cure. Clint wonders if perhaps, he can be fixed after all, as long as he has Coulson to help him along the way. 

And then Loki happens. 

 

\- Present - 

Hacking into restricted SHIELD files has become a hobby by now, something Tony does between his first and fifth cup of coffee while he waits for Jarvis to finish building or calculating something and for Bruce to get back to him on an idea, so when Agent Hill puts a file with a big 'classified' written across the cover, he is honestly surprised. Normally SHIELD doesn't volunteer the information he ends up stealing from them anyway. 

“Now that you have everyone under one roof, Director Fury thought you should know certain things about certain Avengers”, Hill says. “How about that. Things that aren't in the homework file I got before everything went south, I take it.” “Things that aren't even in the regular personnel file. But with Agent Coulson.. with the recent developments, Director Fury considers it the best course of action that somebody takes on certain parts of his... duties. Consensus is that you'd be the best qualified. Don't fuck this up, Stark, we need all of the Avengers in one piece.”

She leaves the file on his desk. Tony flicks it open.

'Clint Barton – Psychological Evaluations', it says. 

He skips through pages upon pages of frankly boring accounts until he comes to the section headed 'Relationships with others: Coulson, Phillip J.' He starts reading.  
Then he stops and gets up to exchange his coffee for whisky. He needs a drink for this. 

Once he's through the file for the second time, has thought about why exactly Fury wanted him to have this file and what it implies, he reckons he needs to talk to Bruce as well. 

 

Clint's not in a good place by far, but then, he's been through worse (not much, but marginally). He needs time and to be left alone, and eventually he'll manage. He's been brainwashed, he's lost his partner, and there is so much guilt and grief that he doesn't even know where to start processing, but he knows himself by now. Talking, or being mothered by the entire lot of the Avengers (particularly by Tony Stark) is the least thing he needs right now. 

Except for some reason Tony has gotten the fixed idea that that is exactly what he needs. And beyond that, Tony seems to have decided for some bizarre reason that Clint needs to get laid in order to make him come to terms with what happened. 

Specifically, by Tony Stark.

And what to make of THAT, Clint has no idea. Sure, Stark has a bit of a reputation, but from what little Clint gathers (he has guilt and grief to deal with, he's allowed not to be at his most attentive), he's been keeping it fairly steady with Bruce lately. This sudden 'hit on Clint Barton' thing he has developed doesn't quite sit right with that. 

Especially not since Tony's motivation seems to be not to follow his own urges, but to do something for Clint which Clint needs. 

What could have given Tony the idea that what Clint needs to recover is to sleep with Tony Stark is beyond him, but Tony is persistent enough for Clint to tell him in no uncertain terms that he's just lost his partner and has no intention to indulge a man who seems to be set on sleeping around behind the back of his own partner. Tony doesn't have an answer to that, so Clint considers it a weird episode, but settled. 

 

Except it isn't. Clint doesn't quite realize how far from settled it is until he realizes that every single interaction he has with Tony is somehow about this – he asks him mundane things like whether he prefers silk or leather as a material until Clint pieces it together and realizes that Tony Stark is discussing restraints with him; he gets the Avengers to play Truth or Dare, or Never have I ever, with apparently the sole purpose of getting Clint to admit things of a sexual nature he then hints at liking as well; he even gets the others to play along with this bizarre scheme of his, having Steve tell him that it's important he takes care of himself and his needs, and Thor reassure him that there is no shame in this, and that he has taken many a brother or sister in arms to his bedchamber to forget about the turmoils of battle. Even Tasha gangs up on him, and that is just unfair and nothing short of betrayal. He wishes he knew what the fuck was going on, but he can't even get a straight answer to that. The Avengers have decided that he needs to – wants to – should – sleep with Tony, and none of them seems to believe that 'no' is his final answer and not just him being coy. He asks Hill if they'd been brainwashed, and if he should be worried about the bizarre behaviour. Hill just stares at him and tells him that he needed to stop acting shy, he wasn't fooling anyone, and that SHIELD needed him back in top form, so he'd better take Tony up on it and do something about matters. If anything, that confuses him even further.

He misses Coulson even more on those days. Coulson generally had a way of figuring out what the reason for the latest insanity regarding Stark or SHIELD was. He could do with some of that expertise now (He could do with all of Phil's expertise now).

The constant pushing and needling and strangeness is bad enough, and if Clint is being honest it's actually painful to endure, particularly so soon after, and from a group he thought he could trust but whose sanity or loyalty he is not entirely sure of any longer. 

 

It gets worse though.

Bruce pulls him aside one day and says, quietly, but sincerely, 'I'm ok with it, you know. He's explained it to me. I'm not happy about it, of course not – Tony'd call me old-fashioned, but.. well, that's how it is. Anyway, but the important thing is that you get better. If it helps, I'm ok with it. So if you're holding out because of me, … don't. Just.. let us help, please.' Clint doesn't answer, and after a while Bruce squeezes his shoulder and leaves. 

Once Bruce is out of the room, Clint punches the wall hard enough to scrape the skin off his knuckles [he'll find an excuse tomorrow, he's good at that]. The thing was bizarre at first, and awkward next, but now.. Now gentle Dr Banner, who is as raw just underneath the surface as Clint, albeit for different reasons, has told him that he's willing to be unhappy if that's what it takes to get Clint better, and all because Tony has decided that in order to get over .. everything, he needed to get laid. Clint's used to being pushed into a corner, to grief and pain and abandonment, to people trying to fix him in ways that make matters worse. It's always been like that, except for the time with Coulson, but Coulson is – Coulson is a case in point. He reckons Bruce is used to a lot of the same things as well, so the thought that Tony, who might well be a little of what Coulson was to him to Bruce, is now abandoning Bruce in an attempt to fix him with this fucked-up notion of his – that's too much. He understands they are trying to watch out for him, and he appreciates it, even if he wishes they'd try it in more conventional ways. He needs to fix this before they break Bruce in the process. 

 

Of course, he never gets the chance, because there is another mission, and then another, and then he's having his hands full with the nightmares and the flashbacks and the half-asleep moments in the morning when he looks in the mirror and thinks, for a second, that there is a grinning, bloodthirsty assassin staring back at him before it's just plain old Clint Barton with stubble and bags under his eyes. And then there is yet another day saved by the Avengers, at the end of which Tony decides that they've been doing so much day-saving, they deserve themselves a drunken-through night for a change. He says no to Tony, and he says no to Steve. Tasha elbows him in the ribs so hard it hurts and so thoroughly that it feels like normality, like them after a simple op gone well, that he takes her up on her offer to let him buy her drinks until she stops being annoyed by his.. moodiness (it's different with Tasha. Tasha is... allowed. Tasha is the only other.. the only living person who's allowed to say 'get over it, Barton, we have things to do'). So he lets her push him into his room so he can shower and change, and he lets her drag him along to the expensive place Tony has rented for the night. He sips his beer and watches her teach tango to an increasingly blushing Steve, and he's almost forgotten everything enough to have a good time. 

But then 'fixing Clint Barton' seems to be on the agenda again, and he doesn't even need special training to see Bruce and Tony discuss something – him- quietly while shooting him looks now and then. And then he finds himself with a slightly tipsy Tony on the one side and a confusingly cheerful Bruce on the other, and his next two hours are spent by listening to Tony's explanations why he needs to let his friends help, i.e. sleep with Tony, preferably now-ish, and witnessing Bruce nudge him in Tony's direction subtly, but obviously, reminding him in periodic intervals that it's ok, really, and they've talked about it and he's thought about it and he's actually quite happy about it, you need to take care of yourself, Clint, so please, you have my blessing if that's what you need. 

Clint has had an awful week and is sick and tired of .. this, whatever this is, and whyever this is. He reckons that if they haven't stopped after three months of declines, and if Tony has now roped Bruce into his operation grief-counceling by getting Clint laid, chances that they'll stop are pretty slim. Clint contemplates this. It's not that he doesn't find Tony attractive, and it's not that he hasn't wondered if his reputation had any basis in truth. As far as taking one for the team goes (and as far as this is concerned, Clint considers himself to be a one-man team), it's not exactly a hardship. More importantly, Bruce has stopped having that harangued and hurt look, and no matter how long he looks and searches, all Clint can find in his eyes and words is a sincere desire to go through with this odd scheme which they have contrived to help him. 

Clint thinks back to the few missions where they'd not seen each other for months and he was getting antsy and Coulson'd said, 'Barton, get drunk and get laid, that's an order. Be sensible about it and tell me the details later, but don't play the long-suffering boyfriend forced to celibacy. It's bad for you, it's getting on my nerves, and, most importantly, Natasha will kill you if you go on about it for another day'. Besides, Coulson is.. Coulson's not that type of partner, never has been. He knew he didn't need to be jealous of anything or anybody. Clint always was his, and always will be. 

He downs the rest of his drink and says 'If you' – he point at Bruce – 'promise me that you are indeed ok with this and will not be hurting and miserable about this for the rest of our respective lives, and you' – he points at Tony – 'swear that this will stop once I give in, then yes.'   
The enthusiasm of their agreement should perhaps have worried him. He says yes anyway. 

The sex is brilliant, Clint wakes up from one of the less terrible nightmares without waking Tony, wanders back to his bed and dreams that he's sitting in front of the bloodstain on the Helicarrier, telling the wall that Tony Stark's reputation kinda does hold up to scrutiny, and that he'd do anything to have him back, sir. He doesn't look in the mirror and cuts himself shaving. 

 

When he joins the rest of the team for informal semi-communal breakfast, still quietly cursing and pressing a paper towel to the cut, the fully assembled team descends on him as one, asking him how he feels and whether last night did him any good. 

His cursing gets a lot less quiet, and he's be pissed at every single one of them because for fuck's sake, did somebody give Tony a book about the healing cock or something, and at least Tasha should know better than to play along with shit like that. 

The utterly devastated and heartbroken looks he gets still hurt worse than the cut.

 

He's sitting on the roof of Avengers Mansion/Tower/Whatever, and it's not the first time he wonders why the hell they build towers for time-bomb initiatives like the lot of them without railings to at least make you pause before you consider anything stupid after a mission gone wrong. “It's because we're the good guys”, Coulson says. “We don't have flaws, or so people like to think, up until the point where we do, but that sort of publicity is Stark's field of expertise, not yours.” “I have flaws”, Clint says, not looking at Coulson, because Coulson is never there when he turns around in a moment like that. Coulson died months ago. This is Clint's mind refusing to come to terms with it, that much he knows by now. “You do”, Coulson says. “But the thing about heroes is, Agent Barton, people believe in them despite their flaws, and they keep going despite their flaws. Director Fury must have forgotten to mention that in his post-mortem speech.” Clint nods. He knows that much by now as well. “Cap thinks my incentive to keep going is to put arrows in as many bodies as possible, and Stark thinks it's to get laid, apparently by his machinations. I'm not particularly happy about that, sir.” Coulson, who is not there, because Coulson is dead and Clint is dreaming, sighs. “I wish I could apologize enough for that, Agent Barton.” 

He has “Just come back to me, damn it, Phil, I don't know how to deal with this alone” on his lips as he wakes. He looks like a truck ran him over, but at least he looks like himself when he faces the mirror to shave. 

He cuts himself anyway. A clean shave is not exactly on the list of priorities these days. 

 

The day it all goes to hell is a Tuesday, and they're fighting... something. The Hood, Dormammu, stuff that's Doctor Strange's sort of thing, not something you can sort out with arrows. Clint hates this, hates magic ever since there were blue eyes and cold hearts and Coulson bleeding out on the Helicarrier, because of him, because of Loki, same thing. He's on a rooftop overseeing the battle, and he's taking down targets left, right and centre, except this is magic, and it's no good. He's no good. They win anyway, because of things Thor knows and because of Doctor Strange, and probably because the Hood is taking the piss much like Loki did that first time, sending that bloody robot thing. He feels like someone dragged him through fire, and all he wants is a shower and his bed, except he knows that he'll dream of this, dream of the Hood asking him how long he intends to keep going, him being the relic of old times with his bow and his unenchanted guns and his partner, dead because of him. He saw a film about bad stuff happening Tuesdays once (with Coulson on the couch writing reports, commenting on continuity errors without looking up from his laptop, a lifetime ago). The way today went, he agrees with the general sentiment.

All he wants is a shower and sleep without everything sleep brings these days, but that song they always quote on House is right, because he certainly doesn't get what he wanted when he walks into the living room featuring the presence of the assembled Avengers. He also doesn't get what he needs, because Tasha says, 'What the hell were you thinking, throwing yourself against that demon-thing?', and Tony says, 'Seriously, Clint, throw us a bone here, what are we supposed to do? We tried everything SHIELD recommended, we tried everything the file recommended – '

'What file?', Clint interrupts.

 

Next, there is about an hour of shouting, and then he's in his quarters, telling JARVIS that if he lets anyone override the door codes there'll be an arrow in his mainframe. He's tempted to throw his quiver against the window (Hawkeye SMASH, and how the hell did it come down to this sort of response level), but the windows are reinforced, and his arrows don't deserve this kind of treatment. He collapses on the bed instead.

So, SHIELD has a file on him. That's no news, SHIELD has a file on everyone. But SHIELD has a file on him saying that apparently explains how on account of psychological stuff he needs to get laid to be fixed, preferably by Coulson, but in general in case Coulson is no longer available, and that's why Bruce has sacrificed his happiness and Tony himself to the noble cause, and that's why everyone has been so fucking weird lately. 

Clint very much wants to laugh and wonder how on earth this is his life, medically prescribed healing cock and all. He feels like someone seized his heart and squeezed, because psych evals concluded that all Coulson was to him was a simple fix-and-shag for his issues, and his friends concluded that psych was to be trusted above all and he wasn't even worth being asked what he needed just once. 

Two hours later, Jarvis informs Clint that Mr Stark has ceased to try and override the door codes. Clint thanks him and apologizes for the mainframe thread. Jarvis tells him to think nothing of it, and that he is there to help.

It makes Clint wonder whether the AI is the only sensible entity in the entire building. 

 

When Phil Coulson is re-introduced to the world on account of a) Director Fury being a liar when necessary for the greater good and b) Agent Coulson threatening each and everyone in medical with revealing all the dirty secrets he knows about them should he not be cleared for light duty immediately, he does three things. First, he goes to find Clint Barton, for reasons that should be obvious to everyone but, as he learns, apparently were not. Then, he gets Barton to get him coffee first and then give him a recap of what he has missed, mission-and otherwise. After that, he goes to psych, finds the psychologist who compiled Clint's file, and punches him in the face. 

Clint gives him shit for potentially pulling his stitches, but mostly, he smiles.

 

The Avengers try to apologize, but Clint has been through the 'fucking up badly and trying to apologize' bit all too recently, so he waves the attempts off and invites them all for pizza. Like a TMNT thing, he says. Overcome a common foe, celebrate with pizza. 

It takes Tony three hours to get over his guilt and finally complain about being compared to a sewer-dwelling turtle named after a painter, but eventually he does, and eventually Bruce exhales and stops looking at Clint like all of this was his fault. He elbows Tasha in the ribs and she elbows back as Steve is explaining to Coulson how there used to be that place on 54th Street which did the best pizza in the entire city, and that it is now a weight loss centre. Coulson laughs, and Clint thinks that they might be able to fix all of this again now that Coulson's back and able to laugh with them despite everything.

 

Clint has new nightmares now, the ones where psych tells him that he needs to lie back and think of SHIELD as Bruce watches with a heartbroken expression. They are all a little more raw under the surface now than before, and he's not the expert on matters like this, but then the experts kinda screwed this one up, so he reckons it'll be fine, given enough time. A lot of time, probably. But in the meantime, Coulson shakes him awake as he dreams of heartless trickshots and blue scimitars, and he when he looks in the mirror he has cause to smile as he's reminded that 'That's still my shaving cream, Barton'. 

He kisses Phil and uses his shaving cream anyway. Communal breakfast is a slow affair as they are all trying to re-establish a balance that was never really there. But now, Clint has balance, and a basis to operate from, and a clear line for his aim. He can work with that. He pours coffee and smiles at Bruce, at Tony, as he passes them their mugs. Tony still takes ten seconds too long to come up with a witty comment, and Bruce still looks too raw under the surface. But Clint has Coulson back, and that means he can fix himself, and then try to undo the mess they got themselves into. SHIELD refrained from kicking him out, and eventually the Avengers took him on. He has confidence in himself if he has Coulson to back him up. He drinks his coffee as he watches Tony try and fail and try and succeed to be his usual annoying self to Coulson. 

Eventually, they'll find a way to heal without doing further damage to each other.


End file.
